Sir, – Martin Mansergh ("Ireland can adapt to either referendum result", Opinion & Analysis, July 16th) raises the important issue of the upcoming Scottish referendum, only to dismiss both possible outcomes as being easily manageable by the Irish State. This view of benign indifference to our neighbours is the most our fellow Scoti can expect from us, I'm afraid.
Notwithstanding the ties of blood, culture, language, history, climate and whiskey (spelled both ways) that bind us, few here seem to feel that Scotland’s destiny is any business of ours. Apparently it suits neither jurisdiction’s self-delusions to recall that, long before the Scots colonised our northern counties, we had colonised the land of the Picts, entirely obliterating their language and replacing it with our own. Their first king, Cinaed mac Ailpin, was undoubtedly of Gaelic stock.
What should it matter to us now, that the Scots are seeking dominion status, with a form of independence, still under the monarchy of the polyglot Queen Elizabeth? Aren’t we all great pals now and all that?
The answer to that is the question that Alex Salmond is not asking. He is not daring to ask “Who owns Scotland?” The lack of agrarian reform throughout Britain is most noticeable in Scotland, where as much half of the land belongs to 500 individuals and corporations, many of them with no other link to, or interest in, the country. Richard Scott, the 10th Duke of Buccleuch, owns 240,000 acres. This is not a matter of excessive personal indulgence. It is a question of the economic life of the nation.
The divine right of landowners to prohibit development, block hillwalkers, pollute the water supply and resist every effort to reduce greenhouse gases and improve the environment is an unchallengeable fact of Irish political life.
In Scotland the problem is proportionately magnified by the much greater size of the landholdings. If the Scots did choose independence, which seems unlikely, they would face a mountain of problems and bureaucratic difficulties with which London would hope to keep them occupied until North Sea oil ran out.
Global rises in population, and the increasing interconnectedness of all societies, sooner or later will bring us all to a new view of the limits of the rights of private property, and the sooner the better for Scotland, Ireland and the whole world. – Yours, etc,
ARTHUR DEENY,
Sion Hill,
Rock Road,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.